Life! By Design_ 6 Steps to an Extraordinary You - Laura Morton [50]
To me, courage is 10 percent fear, 30 percent imagination, 30 percent preparation, and 30 percent faith. Without courage, there is only fear, hesitancy, complacency, and lack of action. All of these traits are the kiss of death when your goal is living an extraordinary life.
Many of my clients work in the real estate and financial business. Courage and fear are an often-talked-about subject because, like most of us, my clients live in a “wait and see” marketplace. I don’t believe in wait and see. I believe in “think, create, and then do!” I often call myself a calculated risk taker. I tell clients to go out and take some action every day, even if it’s small, because no one knows what will happen next. If you have a wait-and-see mind-set, you’ll never discover what’s around the corner. Before you know it, time, opportunity, and life will pass you by. Remember, a bend in the road is not the end of the road.
Human beings have an unbelievable obsession with fixing things, yet uncertainty is one thing that can’t be fixed. It just is. Learn to find peace in the unknown.
There are numerous ways to motivate people, but there is only one way I know to keep people motivated, and that is for them to be self-motivated. Here’s what I mean. All external motivation is temporary. Many people read something or go to a seminar that temporarily fires them up and readies them to make a change. Unfortunately, most of those people end up doing nothing. Lasting motivation, a motive to act, comes from inspiration. My definition of inspiration is being imbued with the spirit to act. Motivation without inspiration doesn’t last. What happens when you lose your motivation? You return to old habits and your same old comfortable behavior—and remain living by default.
Most people stay in their comfortable, complacent place because they aren’t willing to go through the pain that usually comes with change. Leaving a stale relationship, choosing to switch careers, or taking control of one’s health or finances are painful situations that people avoid until something happens and they have to deal with them. And it’s not always pain that people fear. Indecision, rejection, or an unwillingness to accept the worst-case scenario can also hold them back.
Courage is having the ability to decide what you really want and then going after it despite the pain. It’s having the fortitude to choose a direction and then take the necessary action. My good friend, mentor, and bestselling author Brian Tracy once told me that I had to be comfortable with running all my ideas up the flagpole. If it works, he said, keep them up there. If it doesn’t work, bring them back down and send up other flags until you find some that do work. Obviously this means you have to be willing to discover things through trial and error. To live By Design, you must be willing to take action, make mistakes, live through the pain, and have faith in your decisions.
Faith and fear have similar definitions—a belief in the unknown. If I am fearful, I believe in the unknown just as I do when I have faith. Being present in uncertainty gives you an edge that other people lack. Practicing this means you can’t just think outside the box anymore. You have to think inside it and around it, and kick it, shake it, and do whatever it takes to get through your hard times.
So, are you ready to get inspired, take action, make some mistakes, live through pain and upset, have faith in your decisions, and then trust in them? If you’re willing, I will give you the tools and the courage to move forward with fearless faith to transition—By Design.
I saw a story on ESPN a few years ago about a young man born with cerebral palsy. Doctors told Ben Comen he’d probably never walk, let alone run. Even though walking was painful and awkward for Ben, he had a lifelong dream to be on a team with other kids. He wanted to fit in and be one of the guys. Over the years,